English cloth had hitherto borne the palm in the markets of Europe. Genoese and Venetian shipowners had bought the woollens of England as cargoes for their vessels in preference to all other similar manufactures. Portuguese ships sailed with them from the Thames for the Brazils, Peru, and the Indies, East and West. The Germans on the Rhine, and the Magyars on the Danube, were clothed in English broadcloth. But the spirit of deception which had pervaded the Council in the debasement of its coin extended to the merchants, and the guilds became powerless because their members were corrupt. Huge bales of English goods lay unsold on the wharves at Antwerp, because they were “fraudulent in weight, make, and size.” Such was the state of commercial affairs in England when Edward VI. closed his reign, and it was only by the sale of the crown lands, and other property, that the government was enabled to remedy the many evils which a debased currency had created. [Sidenote: Accession of Elizabeth, A.D. 1558.] [Sidenote: War with Spain.] Nor did commercial affairs improve when Mary ascended the throne. Though her marriage with Philip of Spain may have given English merchants an increased knowledge of the West Indies, Mexico, and South America, that unfortunate union became the source of so much trouble, that the maritime commerce of England decreased during the five years of her reign, and, when Elizabeth succeeded her sister, was even more depressed than it had been at the death of Edward. The events that followed did not tend to improve it. The war with Spain, the immediate result of her accession, if it developed the energy and daring of English seamen, and opened wider and richer fields for buccaneering, almost annihilated for a time the now limited legitimate commerce of England. [Sidenote: Temporary peace with France, soon followed by another war.] [Sidenote: Demand for letters of marque.]